Viva Verdi! Stunning Success

Stunning. Magnificent.
Thrilling. From the very
first second to the last.
Thank you: I will certainly
be coming again!

Our largest audience for a number of years shunned the large
number of competing concerts in the county to hear what was surely
one of our best performances in recent memory. Due to space
constraints in St Matthew’s Church, we are simply unable to
accommodate orchestras of full symphonic size, so we took on the
reduced orchestration by Ian Bauers. But, as is so often the case,
our Musical Director had a neat idea to underpin in the strongest,
most dramatic sections! So alongside nearly 120 in the choir, four
soloists, and an orchestra of just 31 players, we were treated to
four trumpets placed in the West Gallery for the Tuba mirum fanfare,
AND no fewer than two antiphonal brass quintet placed stage left and
stage right, who added to both Tuba mirum and the Dies irae
statements which punctuate the work. A quick tally gives the final
number of musicians singing and playing at full tilt in these
grandest moments at 156!!!! Some quotes we have already received
from audience members are given throughout this news article.

Our First Concert Banner outside St
Matthew's

The Verdi in Full Flight

I am writing to say just
how magnificent tonight’s
performance was. It is a
great favourite of mine;
indeed I went to
Peterborough Cathedral only
last weekend to hear it.
Your performance was the
best I have heard in a
number of years. The choir’s
diction was superb, the
clarity of performance by
the orchestra, and the
scintillating surround-sound
brass. Simply Breathtaking!

We therefore have to offer the most sincere thanks to Brad
Turnbull and his brass players from our partners, the
Northamptonshire Music and Performing Arts Trust, for sharing their
talents with us (especially on a very busy National Music Festival
weekend), to Nick Bunker, principal trumpeter of our good friends
the Northampton Symphony Orchestra, and his band of West gallery
trumpeters, and to Tony Ayres and his wonderful Orchestra da Camera,
for grappling with this very busy orchestral score (especially to
those with soloettes in the performance, not least our intrepid
cellist who began the second half with that exposed solo). We were
delighted to welcome Alison Pearce, Deborah Miles-Johnson, Martin
Hindmarsh, and Andrew Mayor, who iced the cake from top Cs right
down to the disintegrating mors … mors … stupebit. Thanks continue
to all those who make things work behind the scenes, from the staff
members at the church and at our rehearsal venue at Northampton High
School, and not least to our répétiteur Ivan Linford, who brings the
orchestral music alive week-by-week with just ten fingers!

One of the Antiphonal Brass Quintets from
NMPAT

Four Trumpeters in the West Gallery

The choir were truly as
good as I have ever heard
them – a real credit to Mr
Dunleavy. My highlight was
Deborah Miles-Johnson’s
intense performance of Liber
scriptus, which often feels
so limp after <that> Dies
irae, but she drove the
movement forward with energy
and passion.

This is the first of two performance in our mini-celebration of
the great Italian sacred full-length choral works, and we return to
St Matthew’s Church on Saturday 9 July – when we can only hope it
will be considerably warmer! – to perform Rossini’s Petite messe
solennelle. Tickets for all our concerts at St Matthew’s are
available online via our website, and if you wish to have reserved
seating in the centre portion of the church we recommend that you
support our ‘Friends’ scheme (again, via the website) or arrive very
early to bag the limited number of centre seats which aren’t
reserved for the ‘Friends’.

I heard every little
detail from start to finish,
and enjoyed the quietest of
quiet singing in places,
contrasting with the huge,
earth-shattering noises of
that day of judgement. The
standard of the choir goes
from strength-to-strength,
and your next concert can’t
come soon enough. Bravo!

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